


The Way Death Loved Me

by rosiespinky (Janyolski)



Category: BLACKPINK (Band)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, F/F, Major Illness, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 23:13:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18486403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janyolski/pseuds/rosiespinky
Summary: TW: Death and IllnessRosie was young when she had her first brush with Death. She was sixteen when Death finally showed itself to her and talked to her.





	The Way Death Loved Me

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies in advance. I was possessed by something and I just wrote this nonstop.

Rosie’s first brush with death happened when she was very young - she must have been no older than six. She remembers bits and pieces of it, little blurs of light and color and muffled sounds. She remembers feeling the anxiety and worry and the sadness and pain emanate from the people around her, mostly from her parents.

The grass was the greenest green she could remember and the droplets of rain was cold and nice on her skin. She and her older sister were playing hide and seek, until her parents came to get her, muddied and grass-stained in her pink dress, hiding behind a tree. They discovered her with purpling bruises under her skin and quickly called for a doctor. Her parents were rich and they lived in a mansion so they could afford an on-call pediatrician.

Death stood by her and hid beside her all the while, behind the tree. Rosie was too young to see Death, then. But Death smiled upon her and gently touched her dark hair, messily pulled back in a low ponytail and whispered, “see you, soon”.

What her parents initially thought was bruises from child’s play gone too harsh turned out to be physical manifestations of an even bigger internal problem - she had leukemia, the kind that developed in childhood up to teenage years, the kind that was very rarely cured.

Rosie never got to play hide and seek again after that day, never got to run around and her little pink dress stayed clean and pristine in her closet. In no time, her playroom was converted into her hospital room, with machines and tubes and wires all surrounding her bed. Her big sister would always come by and be admonished by the personal nurse hired to take care of her for even attempting to play with her. She was constantly tormented by the words “fragile”, “sick”, “rest”, and “no, you can’t”. Days and nights passed and eventually years. Medication and treatment after treatment was given to her. None seemed to work. She felt herself getting weaker and weaker instead of stronger and healthier. Her body went from frail to weak. The colors paled, the music dulled, and even disney somehow lost its magic.

She heard her parents’ muffled cries and she tried her best to tune it out and pretend she doesn’t hear anything. Her young soul withered away faster than her body did, and there wasn’t a more heartbreaking thing to see.

She was sixteen years old when Death finally showed itself to her and talked to her. She thought she was dreaming when she saw a dark hooded figure sitting on top of her bed in mid day. She rubbed her eyes and the figure was there, still. She blinked and it still didn’t go away. So, she decided she wasn’t hallucinating and that the dark figure was truly there. But oddly enough, she didn’t feel frightened, didn’t feel panicked. Death felt like it belonged there, perched on her bed, waiting for her to wake up.

“Hi.” Death smiled.

“Hello.” Rosie smiled back.

“You’re not afraid of me?” Death asked.

“Hmm…” Rosie thought. “No, I guess not. You feel like someone I’ve known for a long time.”

Death giggled.

“Because you have known me for a long time, for many lifetimes.”

And Death’s dark hand moved up to its face to take off it’s mask and push back its hood, and long dark hair fell around it’s shoulders and chopped bangs framed its big, bright doll eyes as its plump lips curved into a warm smile. Death had a small face and a wide little nose.

Death was the prettiest girl Rosie has ever seen, who looked to be the same age as she was.

“Hi, Rosie. Remember me now?”

Rosie looked and studied Death’s face. Her face was small and round and her cheeks bunched up on her face as she smiled a wide smile. Suddenly, her cloak looked too big on her thin frame and Death just looked like a child made up of songs and sunshine and good things. Rosie couldn’t help but reach out to touch her face. Death closed her eyes and held Rosie’s hand against her cheek and felt its fading warmth there. When Death opened her eyes, tears started falling.

“Oh, Death, don’t cry.” Rosie said.

But Death sobbed silently and the tears continued to stream.

“I’m so sorry, Rosie. I’m so sorry, my love.”

Death’s face crumpled and it broke Rosie’s heart.

“Whatever you’re sorry for, don’t be. I’m sure it’s alright.” Rosie tries to smile but her muscles suddenly feel so heavy and everything seems to require double the effort now.

“Rosie, my real name is Lisa. Does that ring any bells?”

_Lisa._

And suddenly there are flashes of moments in Rosie’s young mind, flashes of lives spent in other worlds and other timelines. There is a young woman in the arms of another young woman, and they both possess the ability to do magic, in another is a young artist with her photographer girlfriend, and next is a musician and a bartender, and another is the same two women on a stage performing in front of a big crowd…

And in all of it, she realized, it was her and Lisa, but older versions of them - a Rosie and a Lisa who’s experienced life and lived and had the chance to be happy and together.

A single tear rolled down Rosie’s cheek.

“Lisa…” Rosie’s voice thick with knowledge and realization. She found herself at a loss for words.

“You remember now?” Lisa choked back a sob.

“Yes.” Rosie nodded. “You made a deal.”

Lisa nodded wordlessly, another round of violent sobs wracking her body again.

“I made the deal, love.” Lisa gripped Rosie’s hand with both of hers, held it against her forehead. “I lost you… in our very first lifetime together, I lost you. They didn’t have cures for diseases then - it was the pox. I asked the universe to give me lifetimes with you, chances of being happy with you and building a life with you like we always planned before you got sick.” Lisa closed her eyes and put Rosie’s thin skeletal hand up to her lips and kissed it gently.

“And this was the payment, wasn’t it, love? That all the other Lisa's get the chance to meet their soulmate, their Rosie, while you have to become Death and take me away from life in each and every lifetime, in every single universe?”

Lisa nodded before answering a broken, “yes.”

Rosie’s heart felt the pain of a thousand lifetimes of Lisa as Death, waiting for her and taking her and her heart shatters.

“You got sick before we had the chance to meet in this one, love.” Lisa explained. “The agreement isn’t perfect and there are times when one of us isn’t born or we don’t get the chance to meet because of the choices of people around us. But I have to take you in every lifetime and every universe you’re  born into when your time comes, regardless.”

“That was the agreement.”

“That was the agreement, yeah.”

Rosie touched Lisa’s face again. She looked into her soulmate’s eyes and suddenly the sixteen year old girl looked much much older. She felt the exhaustion in her lover’s soul and felt the exhaustion of her own soul as well, having travelled many lives and galaxies. Suddenly, she was older than sixteen, too.

Rosie mustered up all the physical strength her dying body had left and leaned in closer. Lisa realized what she was trying to do and met her in the middle.

Lips touched lips in the softest of kisses and for a second, both Lisa and Rosie felt as alive as they’ve ever been in millenia.

But violent coughs wrack Rosie’s body and they break apart so Lisa could hold her up.

It was time for her to go.

And once again, it was time for Lisa to take her hand and guide her to her resting place until she could reincarnate into a different version of her and live a different life where she may or may not meet the girl who gave up everything just for the chance to be with her.

“I love you, Rosie. Always.”

“I love you, too, Lisa. In every lifetime.”

“Maybe we’ll get better luck in another lifetime?”

“We’ve had plenty.” Rosie smiled.

Lisa smiled back, eyes shiny with tears.

“Yes. We’ve had.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you thought! Don't be a ghost reader!


End file.
